Editors' Review

If you're not familiar with Flipboard, it's a magazine-style news reader that has been wildly popular on iOS for quite some time. What gives it extra cool points is its ability to handle social media. See, Flipboard can integrate your social accounts into its feed, and present tweets or other status updates just as it would news stories or blog posts (complete with images and video thumbnails). Couple this with Flipboard's gorgeous tiled interface, and it's easy to see why the app is such a fan favorite.

With its clean design, vibrant display of photographic tiles, and smooth page-flipping animation, Flipboard for Android is just as stunning as its iOS sibling. This visual appeal has always been the hallmark of the app.

But Flipboard for Android isn't just a pretty face. Functionally, it packs a punch, too, as it lets you add feeds from a number of different social media accounts, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Instagram, Google+, and YouTube. You can compose status updates from within Flipboard, as well as share, retweet, +1, and Like others' posts.

As with other news reader apps, you can also add feeds from pretty much any news source or site with an RSS feed, or you can subscribe to a Flipboard-curated topic feed. Also, if you use a bookmarking service like Instapaper, Pocket, or Readability, you can integrate those as well.

If you use Google Reader, you can load that up, too. However, Flipboard doesn't let you swipe through individual sources within your Google Reader account, which is disappointing. Meanwhile, another app in the category, Feedly, handles Google Reader beautifully, as it can two-way sync, and even mark items as read with a quick swipe.

One thing worth noting is that Flipboard for Android is not yet optimized for tablets. The image quality is less than stellar, and there's no use of the functional side panels that might otherwise grace a tablet-specific app.

Overall, I'm impressed with Flipboard for Android. Even with its few shortcomings, it's still a gorgeous reader with the flexibility to handle all of your social media. And if that's not enough, it comes with two different widgets, so you can access your Cover stories right from your home screen.

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Publisher's Description

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From Flipboard:
Flipboard's award-winning experience lets people see everything in one place. By bringing together the world's stories and life's great moments, you can stay up to date with the things that matter most. Flip through the news from your Twitter timeline as well as from outlets like the BBC, USA Today and The Verge. See everything from posts and photos shared by friends on Facebook and Instagram to videos from Stephen Colbert and pop culture nuggets from Rolling Stone. Find inspiration for your travel, style and life from places like National Geographic, Oprah and Cool Hunting. Its the one thing to simplify your daily life. Bring Flipboard on the train during your morning commute, catch up over coffee or on vacation, use it as a tool at work or simply to wind down your night. Search for anything or anyone, and make it your own.Youll be amazed by what you see.NOTE: This app is optimized for smartphones, not tablets.Accolades:- Webby Award Winner in News and Social categories, as well as Peoples Voice Award (2011, 2012) - WIRED magazine Essential App (2011)- TechCrunch CruchiesBest Touch Interface (2011)- Gannett Foundation Award for Technical Innovation in the Service of Digital Journalism (2011)- TIME Magazine 50 Best Inventions (2010) Highlights: Be amazed by what you see when everything people are sharing, collecting and publishing in every moment comes together in a single place. Search for anythingpeople, topics, hashtags, blogs, your favorite sitesand flip through articles, updates, photos and videos in a beautiful magazine format. Connect Flipboard to 12 social networks, streamlining your reading and activities like commenting, liking and sharing. Services include Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, YouTube, Google Reader, LinkedIn, Flickr, 500px, Sina Weibo and Renren. Get a quick dose of whats happening now, in Cover Stories, a constantly updated selection of articles, photos and videos shared by your friends. Save anything to read later using Instapaper, Pocket and Readability. Create a Flipboard account to access your favorite content and social networks on different or shared devices. Enjoy Flipboard in 14 localized editionsfor Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Spain, Taiwan, U.S. and U.K. Explore hundreds of staff picks in the Content Guide, including must-read magazines and blogs, gorgeous photography and special curated sections devoted to the news of the day and other topics of interest. Access Flipboard quickly through the widget. Connect with us: Visit us at http://www.flipboard.com or email us at support@flipboard.com. Follow us at @flipboard on Twitter or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/flipboard.Recent changes:* Performance enhancements* Bug fixesContent rating: Everyone

- Small file size. At 2.68 MB it makes Google Currents look like a bloated cow at 27-ish MB.

Cons

- The flip navigation can get a little old sometimes but it's not bad.

- I can't figure out how to share to anything but Twitter, but that's more just that I haven't made the time to figure out how, still could be a little more seamless.

- I haven't seen anything for caching for offline reading but that could be I just haven't found it yet?

Summary

What else is there to say? Magazine formatted websites made easy. It's fun to use too and doesn't take up all your storage with bloat. It doesn't seem to do caching for offline reading but I don't need that too terribly myself; there may be some that it would be a deal breaker for though.

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